Local schoolchildren examined animal brains at the Annual Brain Awareness Fair.
“Today is about making science accessible, not scary or intimidating,” said Alyson Davis, LMSW, of the Fifth Annual Brain Awareness Fair. In early May, the event drew hundreds to the Guggenheim Pavilion. Among the attendees were 500 local elementary, middle, and high school students who received three hours of private access.
School children toured the inside of an inflatable model of the brain in the Guggenheim Pavilion.
More than 15 immersive tables provided the students with a fun, tactile learning environment where they viewed specimens of animal brains, used 3D virtual reality to simulate the experience of performing brain surgery, and controlled the movement of their peers using electroencephalogram sensors.
“This is our favorite event of the year,” said Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience and Director of The Friedman Brain Institute. “I get choked up when I see children from our community showing keen interest in the brain and being part of the Mount Sinai family.”
Diversity leaders Gary C. Butts, MD, and Pamela Y. Abner, MPA
DiversityInc, the nation’s leading publication in advancing excellence in diversity management, has ranked the Mount Sinai Health System No. 1 in the United States in its 2017 “Top 12 Hospitals and Health Systems” list. Mount Sinai improved its national ranking from last year when it was No. 3. In 2016, Mount Sinai also was the publication’s highest-ranked health system for diversity initiatives in the New York City metropolitan area.
Among the best practices that led to Mount Sinai’s special honor this year were its employee resource group participation, manager participation in cross-cultural mentoring, use of an executive diversity leadership board to set goals tied to executive compensation, and a commitment to expanding the supplier diversity initiative. In its top hospitals and health systems rankings, DiversityInc used a 300-question self-assessment survey of multiple diversity criteria, including talent pipeline, talent development, leadership commitment, and supplier diversity.
Situated in one of the most diverse cities in the nation, Mount Sinai is dedicated to ensuring its staff represents the population it serves. An inclusive vision and robust diversity initiatives are spearheaded by Gary C. Butts, MD, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Mount Sinai Health System, and Dean for Diversity Programs, Policy and Community Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The Office for Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) includes Pamela Y. Abner, MPA, Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer; Chief Program Officer Ann-Gel Palermo, Dr.PH, MPH, Associate Dean for Diversity in Biomedicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Barbara Warren, PsyD, Director for LGBT Programs; and Edward Poliandro, EdD, who supports training and education initiatives.
“The more diversity we achieve in our system of care, the better the climate for both patients and staff,” says Dr. Butts. ODI codified 14 areas to tackle in this pursuit, including focusing on patient-centric education and training of staff, engaging and advancing underrepresented groups by expanding the talent pipelines through hospital administrative residencies, and the recruiting, developing, and mentoring of faculty and staff.
“The challenge is how to translate our substantial workforce diversity into something tangible, palpable, and impactful,” Dr. Butts adds. “If we did not allow diverse teams to engage more effectively or if we did not allow for the diversity of our student body to impact learning in the medical school, then we would miss the mark.”
To create and foster an inclusive environment and support the development of a culturally competent workforce, ODI provides education and training to staff, faculty, and students on topics such as unconscious bias; racism and bias in medicine; best practices in LGBT-competent care; and enhancing the transgender patient experience and patient care. The Health System also fosters student-led advocacy groups to develop social consciousness. Members of the
ODI team regularly engage with employees—from department heads to front-line staff—to ensure they include a variety of perspectives.
“We have the focus, intention, and goodwill of people at Mount Sinai,” says Ms. Abner. This is supported by hospital presidents, deans, and other senior leadership who participate in and chair diversity councils. “Leadership has endorsed our work and that is essential.”
The ODI team continues to incorporate more inclusive initiatives into the Health System, including increased accessibility for disabled employees and a commitment to maintaining supplier diversity, particularly local businesses run by women and minorities.
“Organizations that are committed to diversity and inclusion have to work with suppliers who support those populations,” says Ms. Abner. Through the relationship, Mount Sinai will educate vendors on the particularities of working with larger corporations, providing a level of education that may further enhance the company’s future and potentially build community wealth.
“We are not perfect, but we are ahead of the field,” says Ms. Abner, who acknowledges that Mount Sinai still has areas for improvement. She would like to see more diverse representation among senior leadership and within board membership.
“We need to continue to do the good work, articulate that well, and maintain our vision,” says Dr. Butts. “There is more work to be done, without a doubt. We need to look at the gaps that need to be filled and close them. We are in a great position to do that.”
Lisa M. Satlin, MD, Pediatrician-in-Chief, Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai, with Alfin G. Vicencio, MD, Chief, Pediatric Pulmonology, left, and Jeffrey M. Saland, MD, MSCR, Chief, Pediatric Nephrology and Hypertension.
Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai has again been ranked among the nation’s top children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report in its “Best Children’s Hospitals” guidebook for 2017-2018.
Mount Sinai ranked in six of ten specialties and achieved top 25 rankings in two specialties—Diabetes & Endocrinology, and Gastroenterology & GI Surgery. Three departments improved their rankings over the previous year. The rankings, published annually, recognize the nation’s top 50 children’s hospitals in 10 pediatric specialty areas.
Committed to providing exceptional care to children and their families, Mount Sinai has created an alliance with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), one of the nation’s leading children’s hospitals. Patients in the New York metropolitan area now have access to CHOP specialists in fetal medicine, pediatric cardiac care, and pediatric oncology—and to the most advanced diagnostics and treatments from Mount Sinai and CHOP experts—close to home at select Mount Sinai locations.
“This year’s rankings reflect the excellent care provided to our pediatric patients and their families,” says Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System. “We are grateful to each one of our employees—from the physicians and nurses to the social workers and staff—for making this recognition possible through their tireless work.”
The national rankings were generated from data collected through a clinical survey sent to nearly 200 hospitals that measured areas such as patient safety, infection prevention, and nurse staffing. Part of each hospital’s score is also derived from a reputational survey that went to about 11,000 pediatric specialists who were asked to name up to 10 hospitals they consider best in their specialty for children with serious or complex medical issues.
“We continue to recruit renowned experts to our medical teams, and the excellence we have achieved at Kravis Children’s Hospital is reflected in these rankings,” says Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System. “Innovative programs, such as our partnership with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, will expand access to unparalleled care for children in the New York area.”
The hospital, which sees more than 70,000 outpatient visits and 3,000 inpatient stays each year, is ranked in the following specialties:
Diabetes & Endocrinology No. 16, up from No. 38
Gastroenterology & GI Surgery No. 23, up from No. 27
Neurology & Neurosurgery No. 27, up from No. 30
Urology No. 30
Pulmonology No. 32
Nephrology No. 39
The Pediatrician-in-Chief of the Kravis Hospital is Lisa M. Satlin, MD, Herbert H. Lehman Professor and Chair, Jack and Lucy Clark Department of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Every day, our doctors, nurses, child-life specialists, and our entire staff aim to ensure that every patient receives the best possible care, leading to the best possible outcomes, in a supportive environment that is focused on each individual child and his or her family,” says Dr. Satlin.
Seated: Barbara J. Niss and Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD. Back row, from left: Carolyn Aufses Blashek, Harriet Aufses, and Arthur H. Aufses III.
The Mount Sinai Health System’s archives, housed in a simple suite of offices on the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai campus, belies the rich trove of historical documents belonging to seven storied hospitals that are preserved inside.
Filed in these archives is an article about medicine as a noble calling that was written in 1848 by Woman’s Hospital physician E. Randolph Peaslee, MD. (The Woman’s Hospital was later merged into Mount Sinai St. Luke’s.) There are also minutes from the first board meetings for St. Luke’s Hospital from 1850, and for The Jews’ Hospital in 1852 (renamed The Mount Sinai Hospital in 1866), and the minutes from Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s founding board meeting in 1889 that were written in Yiddish.
These documents and many others from Roosevelt Hospital—renamed Mount Sinai West in 2015—and a limited collection from New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, Mount Sinai Queens, and Mount Sinai Brooklyn, provide unique glimpses into New York City’s history and how the practice of medicine has evolved over the centuries.
“History is many stories. We try to bring these stories to people at Mount Sinai so they will know and appreciate them,” says Barbara J. Niss, Director, The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives and Mount Sinai Records Management Program, part of the Academic Informatics and Technology Department. “The more you know about a place, the more connected you feel to it.”
The women’s ward at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s circa 1900.
Upon request, Ms. Niss provides one-hour historical walking tours of The Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH). The Archives’ staff also creates quarterly displays in the Annenberg North Lobby on historical topics using the Archives’ records. The Mount Sinai archivist since 1986, Ms. Niss co-wrote the definitive history of MSH and its clinical and surgical accomplishments in the book
This House of Noble Deeds: The Mount Sinai Hospital, 1852-2002, with Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD, retired Chairman of the Department of Surgery. She and Dr. Aufses also wrote a history of Mount Sinai’s School of Medicine in 2004.
Over the years, Dr. Aufses and his wife, Harriet, have been strong supporters of Mount Sinai. They established the Aufses Family Scholarship, lectureships in the Departments of Surgery and Population Health Science and Policy, and prizes for surgical residents and students. Dr. Aufses’s Mount Sinai roots date back to 1921, when his father began his surgical training at MSH. He says he first visited the archives in the mid-1980s to look for early surgical cases. “It was an incredible experience to see the vast collection of historical material dating back to the 1850s. I became fascinated with the archives.”
Preserving, organizing, and digitizing the Health System’s archival documents is an ongoing project for the Archives staff, and content is added to the collection daily. (Mount Sinai’s Records Management Program is also based in the Archives.) The staff regularly receives requests for information about a particular medical subject, hospital within the Health System, or individual. Ms. Niss says there is ongoing interest in refugee physicians who arrived in New York after fleeing Nazi Germany, in the history of the Woman’s Hospital, and from the families of women who graduated from three of the hospitals’ former schools of nursing.
The Aufses Archives also provided significant support in establishing the Mount Sinai History Wall, an artistic timeline unveiled in December 2016 that showcases in words and pictures each hospital’s transformative contributions to medicine, science, and patient care over the past two centuries. The History Wall is located on the fourth floor of the Corporate Services Center at 150 East 42nd Street, outside the seminar room where new employees attend orientation on their first day of work at Mount Sinai.
Graduating residents and fellows in Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology
Faculty, parents, and friends celebrated the accomplishments of 22 residents and fellows in Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology, and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the 2017 Commencement of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai.
James C. Tsai, MD, MBA, President, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, and Chair of Ophthalmology, Mount Sinai Health System, welcomed graduates and guests to the event, held on Thursday, June 22, at the Friends Meeting House.
“It has been a pleasure and a privilege to teach and mentor this extraordinary class. Be proud of your achievements and celebrate your successes,” Dr. Tsai said, setting out goals for the future: “Use your knowledge to lead changes in health care for the better, and deliver exceptional patient care. Challenge the status quo to make a positive difference, seek opportunities to provide global assistance to revive hope. Innovate and dream big.”
Four of the graduates were residents specializing in otolaryngology, and seven were residents in ophthalmology. The residents will now take fellowships at top-tier institutions, including the University of California, San Francisco; Wills Eye Institute in Philadelphia; and Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Eleven fellows completed training in subspecialties, including cornea and refractive surgery, glaucoma, ocular immunology, vitreoretinal surgery, and aesthetic plastic surgery.
Members of the Class of 2017 of the Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai Beth Israel
In a jubilant ceremony, the Phillips School of Nursing (PSON) at Mount Sinai Beth Israel graduated 80 new nurses who received an Associate’s Degree in Nursing, and conferred a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree to 24 registered nurses. The 113th graduation ceremony was held on Tuesday, June 6, at Stern Auditorium on the campus of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Presiding at the ceremony were Janet A. Green and Ruth Nerken, Co-Chairs of the Board of PSON, who presented the degrees. Carleen Graham, MSN, RN, Program Coordinator, RN-BSN Program, served as the Platform Marshall, and Lorraine McGrath, MA, RN-BC, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, gave graduates their PSON pin.
Twenty graduates were inducted into the Honor Society, which was founded in 2012. These students successfully achieved a grade point average of 3.7 or higher.
Todd F. Ambrosia, DNP, MSN, RN, Dean, welcomed the graduates, faculty, staff, and guests. The commencement address was given by Betsy M. Tirado-Ortiz, RN. Now retired, Ms. Tirado—a 2016 recipient of the Nurse of the Year Award from the National Association of Hispanic
Nurses—maintains a passion for nursing and continues to participate in a number of international missions that help children with congenital heart defects.
“Don’t waste your time waiting to win the lotto. You have already won the lotto—you are a professional nurse,” Ms. Tirado told the graduates. “Make your own riches, share them, and enrich your own life and the lives of others. You each carry within you the power to go from magical thinking to the power of completion.”
